In Nomine Dei
by speaker4thesilent
Summary: YAHF. The Scoobies go as members of Hellsing for halloween. Non-cannon femslash alert. THIS WILL BE SOMEWHAT DARK.
1. Ad Vitam Aeternam

I know I should be working on one of my other fics, but a plot bunny grabbed this and it bloody well won't let go. This is an answer to Challenge 3371 on TtH. If it matters, this fic is based off of the Manga version of Hellsing, not the Anime. There is also a very slight crossover with Castlevania that will not be apparent until near the end of the story.

Pairings will be B/F, W/X, and D/?. Do not expect anything too graphic; my delicate morals are already freaking out over the femslash.

"speech"

/telepathy/

XXXXX

Chapter 1

Ad Vitam Aeternam

She woke up. And that was interesting all by itself because the last thing she remembered was talking to Walter in her office, and her office most emphatically did not contain blacktop. Sir Integra Fairbrook Windgates Hellsing, head of the Royal Protestant Knights pushed herself up off the asphalt, instinctively straightening her sword as she looked around.

Outwardly she was as composed as ever. Inwardly she was becoming extremely nervous. If someone, or more likely something, could abduct her right out of her own home, out of the headquarters of the Hellsing Organization with all the security both mortal and magical that that implied . . .

"Master," It took all Integra's control not to jump as the familiar yet somehow subtlety different voice spoke up behind her. Despite the aggravation that would inevitably follow in Alucard's wake Integra was immeasurably comforted by the fact that h-

Integra stared at her servant in open shock as she completed her turn. She knew she was only reinforcing the True Nosferatu's negative behavior, but she simply couldn't help it. After a few moments, she managed to school her expression into something approximating her usual stern air. "Extremely amusing, Alucard." She said with a glare, "Now change back."

The very female Vampire in front of her grinned, her lips drawing back much farther than a human's could have managed. The result was an impressive display of ivory. All of it, even what would have been molars on a mortal, pointy. "Do you disapprove my Master?" the No Life . . . King? Queen? shot back with a leer.

Integra thought some very aggressive thoughts in her servant's direction. Most of them involving her emptying the revolver she carried at her hip into the aforementioned irritating Vampire. Alucard's grin only grew wider and Integra sighed. She could undoubtedly get her way, but it simply wasn't worth the effort she'd have to expend. Not when she still had no way of knowing what had abducted her or where she was. Pretending not to even notice her red-clad vassal's question, Integra reached inside her coat for a cigarillo, "Report, Alucard. Where am I and how did I get here,"

For a moment, it looked like the centuries old Vampire would prove balky about his duty, but after a moment his grin disappeared, "I don't know,"

Integra waited for him to expound on that incredible statement, but it quickly became clear that the Nosferatu's concentration was elsewhere. Clearing her throat, the Director of Hellsing inquired somewhat dangerously, "Would you care to elaborate?"

Alucard immediately snapped back from wherever he had been and his ever-present smirk snapped back over his features. "It would be easier for me to show you." Before she could draw back, Alucard placed his right hand on her forehead.

What followed was possibly the most startling thing she'd ever observed. A whole different person's life flashed in front of her mind's eye. Growing up in Los Angeles, her parent's divorce, moving to Sunnydale, something that looked like a caricature of a true vampire, winning a bet with her sister, and then picking out a costume for Halloween complete with a plastic cavalry saber and revolver. Integra jerked away from her servant's grasp recognition flowing through her as she saw the form in front of her that was so strange to a part of her, and yet ultimately familiar.

"What are your orders, my Master?" the grinning vampire asked.

Integra glared at her servant. He could have just told her that magic was involved. For that matter he didn't even need to hear her response. But it was familiar. Part of their routine, and she found that she needed that right at the moment. Damnable Vampire.

Trusting him to know her intentions and to share them, she spoke only three words.

"Search and Destroy,"

XXXXX

As soon as Alucard was far enough away from his Master that he couldn't be seen, a ripple seemed to flow over his very feminine appearance, and where it passed, a much more masculine Alucard appeared. When the process was finished the Mideon smiled up at the sky. "What a wonderful night," the mad grin on his face only got wider as he concentrated on the flows of magic in and around the small town he and his Master had awakened in. He'd done only a cursory survey before checking in on the latest Hellsing to hold his leash. It was enough to be sure that nothing in the immediate area was capable of causing him harm, but he'd need more than that to be rid of the idiot magician who had dared summon his shade across space and time.

The first thing he noticed was the nearly overpowering dark energy that laced the ley lines of the small city. Of course, its very power made it relatively easy to trace to its source. "A dimensional tear. Intriguing," perhaps that was the reason so many creatures of Power had been summoned by the spell? It seemed possible at least. A mortal with enough power to manipulate the soul of a true No Life King was only born once every dozen generations if that frequently, and to find one playing a simple prank on Samhain? Unlikely. Most of that type tended toward world saving or destroying not petty parlor tricks.

The second field of energy was harder to find, existing, as it was, beneath the overpowering curtain of the breeched dimensional walls. Alucard, however, was a Mideon with more than four hundred years of study and experience with the Arcane. It took him less than a minute to track down the far weaker source of power. The mad Nosferatu's grin widened even further as he twisted his body into the shadows around him.

After an amount of time passed that was so small that the process was functionally instantaneous, Alucard stepped out of the shadows in front of the costume shop that had sold the body he was possessing her outfit along with the 13mm Anti-Freak pistol, Jackal, and the .454 Casull, Joshua. Alucard contemplated terrorizing the imbecilic mage for a time before killing him, but quickly shoved that idea away. Every moment that he and his Master were present in this little town was a moment that her true body back in England was vulnerable to attack. No matter how much it bruised his sense of style, he didn't have the luxury of time to enjoy himself here. Best to just torture the counterspell out of him and let Integra send us home.

It would have been far easier to simply suck the idiot wizling's blood, but anything worth doing was worth doing the fun way. A bit of torture, at least, would be enjoyable. Alucard stepped forward, mad grin firmly in place. He ignored the door entirely simply phasing through it as though it was merely mist and he was solid. The inside of the shop was exactly as his host body's memories pictured it save for the absence of a few additional costumes. Alucard continued through the store, not bothering to walk around displays, and the shadows he walked through seemed to swirl and gather in his wake.

He'd made it halfway across the room when the mage finally sensed something. It was obvious that the fool hadn't seen through his restraints, of course. The idiot was, after all, walking toward him instead of running the other way. Alucard decided to remedy the situation.

"Authorization: Release of Control Arts to Level Three . . . Level Two. Situation A recognized. The Cromwell Approval is in effect. Authorization shall persist until the enemy is silent." The almost silent invocation had the desired result. The poor dim-witted mage immediately started for the back door. His speed, however, was no match for a Shadow Walking Mideon and he ran headlong into Alucard's newly reformed body and bounced.

"Oh, bugger,"

XXXXX

Walter ducked under a blow from the furry . . . thing that was currently attempting to make him a part of the pavement before delivering a truly ungentlemanly kick to the creature's sensitive parts. The beast collapsed, apparently its physiology similar enough to a human's to react similarly to a kick in the bollocks. Pulling out the monocle that his strangely younger body no longer required, he turned to the girl in the cat costume that he'd come out of the house he and Miss Victoria had made use of to rescue, only to receive another shock in the seemingly endless list of the night's surprises.

"Jeez, Xander, when did you go all Karate Kid?" the brunette asked.

It took the Hellsing family's butler several seconds to translate the girl's abominable slang into the Queen's English. When he did, he found that he had something else to be confused about. "I beg your pardon, Ma'am, but my name is Walter not Sander," the fuzzy beast chose that moment to make a grab for the young woman's ankle. Walter introduced its nose to his foot and shot the inappropriately dressed girl a look. Now that he'd saved her, what the devil was he supposed to do with her? He couldn't simply leave her to wander this monster-infested town by herself. That left bringing her into the house with Seras. That was definitely not a wonderful idea, all things considered, "And I suggest that we take this inside. The natives appear to be somewhat restless." The no-longer-so-old Englishman led the young American into the small home that he had . . . appropriated mere minutes earlier for. As they walked in the door he noticed her shiver and removed his outer coat and tucked it around the girl's shoulders. That was approximately the moment that Miss Victoria entered the room.

The girl's eyes went wide and she made an almost silent "Eep!" sound as she stared at the twisting, writhing shadows surrounding the form of Seras Victoria. To her credit, though, she neither ran screaming nor passed out. That was somewhat better that Walter had been envisioning.

"Oh my God, Willow, what happened to you?" Walter stared at the cat-costumed young woman for a moment before shaking his head. Why were the interesting ones always insane? As she started to head for the strawberry blond Vampire Walter gently grabbed her upper arm and stopped her from moving. She shot him a glare, but just as she opened her mouth the former Police-Girl preempted her.

"Willow?" she asked, seeming almost confused for a moment before shaking it off along with a section of her right shoulder which immediately shape-shifted into a pair of bats that flew up to the ceiling before abruptly merging into a large crow and sinking back into the shadows surrounding the newborn True Nosferatu. Seras didn't seem to notice the girl's sudden discomfort at all. "Sorry, dear, my name is Seras not Willow," a vague smile appeared on her face as fully half of her body turned to mist with absolutely no warning," She giggled at something none of the others could see before turning back to Walter and saying the thing he'd dreaded hearing all night, "I'm hungry."

XXXXX

Integra Hellsing found herself at loose ends. Still chewing on her unlit cigarillo, she was attempting to use her never-to-be-sufficiently-damned satellite phone to get back in contact with the main headquarters of the Royal Protestant Knights to explain what was happening to Walter who was doubtless frantic with her and Alucard's spirits elsewhere.

Normally the accursed thing was a wonderful way to stay in touch with Headquarters when she was forced to take the field, but this time the damned thing was refusing to give her a connection at all. Muttering to herself, she disengaged the phone's security features.

The connection was instantaneous. Of course, the recorded voice saying the number didn't exist was an annoyance. Integra double-checked the number she'd dialed was that of the Hellsing Organization before dialing again to the same result. Muttering a curse that would have had her servant rolling on the ground in laughter if he'd heard it, Integra contacted the International Operator and had her call transferred to England. After jumping through the thrice-damned computer's dozen and one hoops Integra was finally able to talk to a living human being. After giving the operator the address she wanted to call, however, she got yet another shock.

"I'm sorry, Ma'am, but I don't have a listing for that address. Are you certain you've got it right?"

Integra was about to take the stupid bitch's head off when something occurred to her that she found less than entirely pleasant. She made a suitable excuse and hung up, but her mind was following the newest logic chain that she'd uncovered.

One: she should have been able to contact Hellsing Manor and she couldn't. The phone number might have been changed and she might have missed the memo. But there was no way that Walter would have also changed the address of the Headquarters building at the same time. She could only come to the conclusion, that, as foolish as it sounded, there was no Hellsing Manor to contact. And if that was true-

Her breath caught in her throat. She'd been making the assumption that her spirit and that of her servant had simply been moved through space and dropped in America. But what if there was no Hellsing Organization, no Royal Protestant Knights?

The world would be defenseless against the anti-Christ vampires and their ghouls. Even if all this world has are those pathetic revenants what would happen when it occurred to one of them to try to take over? Normal bullets would be worthless. Even tank rounds and explosives would be less than totally effective, and that's only if the armies of the world could maintain morale long enough to come to grips with the fact that nightmares were real. It was an impossible leap, but one that Integra instinctively accepted. There might be some other Hunter groups in the world. In fact there probably were, given that humans apparently still ruled, but that didn't absolve her of her own responsibilities. She was bred to be a woman of action. She knew of only one thing she could do to help this world. And she would do it, even as she apologized to the girl who had had the misfortune to dress as her servant.

/Alucard!/

XXXXX

It was really that simple?

Alucard stared down at the sobbing mage in disgust. He'd expected to need Integra and her greater grasp of the Arcane to break the enchantment and send them home. Instead he found that the . . . the moron of a spellcaster hadn't even bothered to ward the focus of the spell. Hadn't laid traps or preset curses or anything for whatever might take it into its head to undo what he had done. When he'd told Alucard how to break the spell, the Mideon had felt so insulted by the obvious lie that he'd stepped the torture up a half dozen notches out of sheer annoyance. It had taken ten minutes of the same story being screamed at him between gasps for air and the inevitable shrieks of pain before the No Life King had decided to believe the incompetent twit.

It made Alucard's job far easier than it would have been otherwise, but it was an insult to his sense of professionalism if nothing else. The True Nosferatu lifted Joshua to obliterate the green-glowing bust of Janus when his Master's urgent summons slammed into his mind. He almost shot the bust anyway. It seemed, after all, like the best way to get his master out of any conceivable danger, but then the tone of Integra's mental voice registered. Not fear, or even the more common Anger filled her thoughts. Only sorrow and a deadly focus and purpose. His master had a plan. Annoyance vanished from the Mideon's features and his manic grin returned in full force. Integra's plans were always so entertaining.

He turned his smile back to the fool below him and the idiot's pale skin turned almost gray at the display of pointy teeth. "Please, don't kill me! I told you what you wanted!"

Alucard's grin disappeared. He'd been prepared to let a man live, but Ethan's begging had just taken him out of that category. A man might have been broken by the torture or he might have given in to the inevitable when he realized how much more powerful his enemy was. Ethan, though was obviously a coward, and real men were not cowards. That made the filth cowering in front of him a dog. A lousy cur begging for scraps.

"I won't kill you," Alucard said and the cowering mutt in front of him relaxed until he spoke again. "I'll leave that up to her," he said with a grin, pointing to Seras Victoria as the former Police-Girl entered the back room of the shop.

Ignoring the now screaming filth in front of him he turned his attention to the advancing Seras, "Make sure to tear off his head after you're done. It would be inconvenient for him to become even a ghoul,"

"Yes, my Master," the younger Mideon acknowledged as she hauled the uselessly resisting piece of trash upright.

Alucard turned back to Walter as the much younger Englishman walked into the room, followed closely by a brunette in a cat costume that turned white as a ghost when she saw what Seras was doing. She didn't faint or scream though. He could see why Walter had bothered to protect the girl. She had spirit. "Ah, Angel of Death, I must go and fetch Integra," he said as he faded from view, "Be certain that the bust there remains unharmed. I believe my master has plans for it,"

XXXXX

Integra took one last look at her PDA before adding a final symbol to the outermost magic circle around the bust of Janus and powering down the device, glad, once more that Walter had taken the time to upload the database he'd assembled from the Hellsing's collection of Magical tomes onto the handy gadget. She took one more moment to make absolutely certain that nothing unforgivably stupid had been done to any part of the carefully written circles before turning to the other participants standing at the other four points of the five-pointed star.

The girl, Cordelia, stood at North. She would be the anchor for the spell. Her presence, in her right mind, as a true resident of this particular dimension would be required for the successful completion of the slightly modified ritual Integra was invoking. Opposing her were the two Mideons Alucard to the left at Southeast and Seras to the right at Southwest they were both Undead and the spell required them as a counter balance to the three living beings on the other side. Finally she looked over at Walter standing at the Western point of the star between Cordelia and Seras before she grasped her magical link to her servant and began to draw in the twisted power of the town's ley-lines.

It took only a few moments to accumulate the power required for the spell. Integra was not a true master of the arts, she and her family had always been only gifted journeymen. It was the link they'd forget to Alucard that made their magic truly powerful. It also conferred other advantages, one of which Integra took advantage of. Since she didn't speak ancient Egyptian and her Romanian was somewhat rusty she let the symbols she had drawn channel the spell, the words another caster would use unnecessary with the magic being filtered through the Mideon before being used. Integra met Alucard's eyes as the ritual hit its climax and the Vampire raised his 13mm hand cannon and put a single bullet into the glowing focus.

XXXXX

Cliffhanger!! Am I evil or not? I'll try to get updates out at least once a month. However, my muse is a psychotic edited for content with an attention span shorter than a kid with ADD hyped up on sugar, so I can't make promises. I'll try to run the next chapter up through the whole Ford mess.

For those of you that don't speak Latin:

In nomine Dei . . .: In the name of God . . .

Ad Vitam Aeternam: 'to Life Everlasting' or 'To Eternal Life' the exact translation is unclear.

So whadda ya think? Questions? Comments? Hit that review button and tell me what you think!

P.S. Arena Season 4 is out!! Now I have to get my personal rating back up to 2k all over again. /cry


	2. A Hellsing on the Hellmouth

Wow. I can't believe the response I got out of the first chapter of this fic. You guys, especially those of you on TtH are the best. Sorry about the delay. I would've had this out by Sunday if not for frigging hurricane frigging Ike.

For those of you who don't remember from last time, THIS IS A DARK FIC! You have been forewarned.

"Speech"

/Telepathy/

_Thought_

As usual I own nothing. Do not sue me as I have nothing worth taking.

XXXXX

A Hellsing on the Hellmouth

Dawn's return to consciousness was accompanied by a headache approximately the size of Rhode Island. A headache that was most emphatically _not_ being helped by the coughing that reverberated around the small room. "Would you kindly cease that?" she ordered sharply, the pain in her head robbing her of what little tact she might have possessed after _being_ possessed for the majority of the night.

Cordelia sucked in a short breath in surprise, but it was apparently too much to be hoped that she'd take the hint and shut up. "Oh my God, I thought the creepy Brit was going home!" the cheerleader began, working herself into a full-blown rant as she continued. "Great, now Buffy's kid sister is possessed by some English witch! Why does this always happen to me?"

Dawn tried to remain calm, she really did. For all of two seconds anyway. "You will cease talking, or I will have no recourse but to shoot you," she said with a glare at the vapid twit as the other's mouth dropped open in shock. Then what she'd said penetrated her headache-fogged brain. "Oh, God, Cordelia, I'm so sor-"

Cordelia rolled right over her attempted apology, never even noticing that the English accent had been replaced by a hundred percent California, "You're all a bunch of _freaks_!" she yelled as she ran out of the room and into the oncoming dawn.

"Lovely," Dawn said as she pressed her palms to her temples and clenched her eyes as another stab of pain ran through her head. She would have been quite content to remain that way in the quiet of an early morning until hear headache disappeared. Then she heard a soft sound that a part of her identified as the back door opening. A new part that was hard and unyielding as iron. The same part that had her pointing her new Beretta 93R at Giles as he stepped into the room seconds later.

Dawn quickly lowered the weapon while the middle-aged, sword-toting librarian stared at her in something approximating shock. "Dawn?" he asked and Dawn winced at the sound of is voice. Considering the amount of throbbing in her head, it was at least twice the volume she'd have found comfortable.

A feeling that was apparently shared by Xander, since his voice abruptly broke into the conversation, "Giles," he asked pleadingly, "could you possibly lower the decibel level? I'm in a catastrophic amount of pain."

"Good Lord!" the Librarian said, apparently unconsciously. He did, however, lower his voice to a level that didn't make her head feel like a hammered gong. "What happened here?" he continued urgently, "Have either of you seen Buffy or . . . or Willow?"

Despite her headache, Dawn grinned at her sister's mentor. His rapid-fire questions had nearly approached the speed of Willow-babble. However, it was when she turned to indicate her sister and her hacker friend's places at the other two points of the circle that she got her single largest surprise of the night. It wasn't something Dawn would have recognized, but the part of Dawn that had been Integra Hellsing _had_ seen it before. Every time that Alucard decided to play with one of his opponents before he ripped its limbs off.

The puddles of black and red goop where Alu—where Buffy and Willow, she reminded herself with a wince, had been standing were the sort of thing that resulted from two Mideons taking enough damage to force them to abandon human form. Presumably the spell's backlash had taken even more of a toll on the Vampires than it had on her and Wal—Xander. It also, Dawn noted, meant that there was going to be a problem with telling Giles what had happened.

"They're right here. I presume that they'll pull themselves together as soon as they can." Dawn stated with assurance that she didn't quite feel. Integra had been certain that the ritual would leave them unharmed, but there was always a chance that mixing magics could have unanticipated results. _And you're stalling. _A voice seemed to whisper into the back of her mind from a half-remembered session with Walter after her father had died. _You are a Hellsing. You carry a heavy burden on your shoulders, but you must never let that burden keep you from your duty. _Dawn wanted to rail against the voice. _She_ hadn't been born for this! She certainly hadn't asked for it. And now her Sister and her Sister's best friend were going to be stuck as blood-sucking, Anti-Christ Vampires for the rest of existence? Damnit! It wasn't _fair_!

_Life isn't fair_, she could almost hear Integra's voice say, _If life was fair, my Father would not have died. My Uncle would have been a decent man. _

Dawn ground her teeth, fighting back tears as she turned back to the Watcher who, beginning to grasp the significance of the piles at the southern points of the star, was staring at those selfsame masses of blood and dissolved tissue and apparently fighting shock. He turned back to Dawn just as Xander reached her, and Dawn grabbed her crush in a death grip, holding him like a life line as the tears that had threatened finally began to fall.

XXXXX

Giles listened to Dawn and Xander's recounting of the nights events with shock and not an insignificant amount of horror.

He'd failed. That's what it came down to in the end. It was his assurances that Halloween was a safe night; that nothing ever happened on Halloween that had been the only reason Buffy had been willing to countenance letting Dawn out of the house at night in Sunnydale. The only reason that she'd agreed to let her little sister choose their costumes if she'd won that silly bet. Now his Slayer was lost and it was his fault. No matter what Dawn thought, there was no bloodline of Vampire in the world that could rebuild itself from nothing more than a pile of- of _parts _like what was left of his charge and her friend.

No. More likely that the two spells had canceled each other, and something about the process had resulted in their bodies being so thoroughly and spectacularly destroyed.

/Do you have so little faith in me then Giles?/

And now he was going insane.

It wasn't an entirely unheard of phenomenon for a Watcher to go quite mad after his Slayer's death in much the same way that some Slayers simply 'lost it,' in the American parlance, if their Watcher died. He'd always assumed, when he allowed himself to consider the possibility of Buffy's death at all, that he'd be strong enough to survive her assuming that he didn't die beside her.

/Giles./

Interesting. He could almost hear the annoyance in her voice. He sighed before doing his best to block out the voice from his thoughts. He needed to get Dawn and Xander somewhere safe. It was still nearly two hours to sunrise, and the protections Ethan had raised around his shop had apparently died with him. Getting his two surviving children behind the protection of a threshold was his overriding responsibility now; he could go quietly insane once they were safe and the Council had been informed of-

"Giles!" An incredibly strong hand grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. "Not dead."

The figure looking at him with an expression caught between annoyance and humor couldn't possibly exist. He'd seen what the spell had left of Buffy and Willow, and it simply wasn't possible that anything could have rebuilt itself out of the mess the mystical backlash had created. "Buffy?" he asked in disbelief, but even as the words left his mouth, he wanted to call them back. The girl in front of him looked very similar, but there were obvious differences. The elongated canines visible as she smiled and her red eyes, for instance.

"Buffy!" Dawn said as she launched herself at her sister. Relief that her elder sister was up and moving again apparently overwhelming good sense since it was Dawn herself that had told him that Buffy and Willow had both dressed as vampires. Reacting as quickly as his aging joints allowed him, Giles pulled a crucifix out of his jacket and shoved it into the face of the demon pretending to be the young woman he had begun to consider a surrogate daughter. The only thing that he could do for her now was protect her former family from the demon that had killed her.

"Get back! I won't let you harm her," he growled dangerously as he pulled Dawn away from the surprised vampire. The vampire that looked at the cross he'd thrust at her face incredulously for a bare few seconds before dissolving into helpless giggles that rapidly escalated into full-blown laughter.

"Giles!" Dawn screeched from behind him, clearly incensed. "Stop threatening my sister this instant!" A lesser man might have been frightened by the madly laughing vampire or been distracted by the girl behind him, but Giles had decades of experience with the supernatural and he was neither intimidated nor sidetracked.

"Xander, over here if you please," he called to the young man. Costumed as an experienced hunter or not, the young man had admitted to being in pain, and the amount of discomfort he had evidenced could be enough to present a fatal flaw in the young man's ability to fight off a supernaturally powerful attacker. Best to present a unified front when the Vampire stopped laughing. A demon that wouldn't so much as slow down for an old man and a girl might hesitate when presented with three targets ready and able to resist, probably not for long, but maybe for long enough.

Except that Xander wasn't moving. "Come now, Alu—Buffy," the young man chided, "its not really _that_ funny."

The vampire stopped laughing and Giles attempted to mentally prepare for the worst. If nothing else, he'd at least be sure to get Dawn out alive. Except that what he expected to occur, namely that the Vampire would go for Xander's throat, didn't happen.

"Indeed Wa—Xander," the vampire acknowledged as she turned back towards the cross Giles still held upraised in front of himself and Dawn, a scowl on her face, "quite frankly it's insulting."

And then she reached out and grabbed the cross from Giles' hand and inspected it for a moment before casually tossing it over her shoulder.

"Don't compare _me_ to the demonic trash that clutters the sewers of this hellhole. I'm as far above them as you areabove a rat, Watcher Mine," she said the last with a grin that was so familiar that his chest ached with barely suppressed hope to see it. Even with black hair and red eyes there was a quality there that was inextricably a part of his charge; something that he was certain that no spell, no demon could fake.

"Buffy?"

And that set her off again.

"Buffy!" she spat and turned to glare at Dawn who had managed to edge back around Giles while he'd been distracted. "Buffy? What was our mother _on _when she named me? Acid? You get a perfectly normal name, and I get stuck with _this_ monstrosity." She abruptly turned and glared at Xander, much to Giles' confusion. "Oh, don't you dare say that out loud!" Giles could only stare as his life drifted off into the Twilight Zone.

Or he could just be insane. At the moment, that thought was of considerable comfort to him, and the more he considered it, the more likely he believed it to be. Abruptly, he decided to enjoy this plesant delusion while it lasted; if he really was insane he'd doubtless experience worse in the near future. His attention was drawn back to the scene in front of him by a particularly loud exclamation from his (late?) charge.

"It's absurd! _Buffy_?! Why not simply tattoo 'Easy' on my forehead?" she growled with a sneer. "I absolutely refuse to acknowledge that name ever again!"

Xander rolled his eyes in something approaching exasperation. "Well, then, what do you want us to call you?"

"I'm considering 'Vampire-Bitch' myself," Dawn muttered and Buffy loosed a vicious-sounding growl in her direction before snapping back toward Xander at his suggestion of 'Dead-girl! That way they'll be a matched pair.'

"ENOUGH!" she roared, eyes blazing and canines doubled in length. Giles expected the situation to deteriorate to match some of his more interesting nightmares, but Xander and Dawn didn't even bother to back away from the infuriated vampire, who, displaying the mercurial nature that, had he only known, Xander and Dawn were now quite familiar with sprouted a grin far too wide for a human face. "It appears that Se—Willow is about to rejoin us, and since she seems to be having rather more difficulty than I did, it behooves us to settle this little argument hastily. 'Lilith', I believe, will not be too onerous a name to answer to."

Under other circumstances, Giles might have been surprised that his charge had adopted the name of the Mother of Demons; since this was a delusion, however, he didn't think he'd be terribly surprised by anything.

Which, perhaps inevitably, was when Willow started reforming herself out of the bits and pieces that were still scattered all over the floor.

XXXXX

Willow woke, confused, to a dark, soundless, nothing. For several moments, she couldn't remember where she was or how she got there. _Not home in bed. _She concluded swiftly, which immediately left her envisioning her worst nightmare. She reached out fearfully trying to find the sides of the coffin or the little refrigerated box in the morgue before she realized that she couldn't control her arms. In fact, she couldn't even _feel _her arms.

Or her legs.

Or anything else.

_Drugged. I've been drugged. I went to the Bronze and got drugged by some freaky psycho-person. _But that felt wrong somehow.

_Not the Bronze, _She remembered, _It was Halloween and we were watching out for a bunch of the Elementary School kids and I was dressed as Seras Victoria- _her thought process shudderedto a halt as images of the night snapped into her mind's eye: finding herself and a much younger Walter suddenly torn away from London, seeing the weird cat-girl that Walter had saved, tearing out Ethan, the costume shop owner's, throat, the taste of his blood, the feel of it sliding down her throat.

If she'd been able to feel her body, she'd probably have been violently ill. She forced herself to not think about it, locking it away in the same place she stuffed all of the other memories she didn't want to think about, didn't want to remember: Her parents going away to a conference the day before her eleventh birthday, not understanding why their daughter was so upset, being ridiculed by Cordelia and her sheep for wearing the dress her mother had bought for her, yet another gift mailed to her from overseas for Hanukah, seeing her parents killed by gang members and her mother raped, watching as her unit was torn apart by ghouls at Cheddar.

_God, what's happening to me?_

/That should be obvious, little Tree/ a voice interjected. Had she been capable of it, Willow would have gasped in shock. There was simply no way that could be who she thought it was. /Oh? And why not? Come now, Willow, I was lead to believe that you were smarter than this./ The androgynous mental voice prodded in a sarcastic tone that registered in a purely visceral manner.

And where gentle chiding would have failed, a blow to her pride worked wonders.

_Master! _and that had come out on pure reflex straight from Seras, but where the Police Girl of Hellsing would have been embarrassed, and Willow mortified to have used the term in the first place, the amalgam of both was something approaching furious. _Fine, what the hell am I supposed to do? I don't know what happened!_

There was a mental silence for several moments, and just when Willow-Seras was getting panicky, the familiar and yet wholly different voice returned. /I apologize, Willow. I am having some small difficulty remembering things at the moment. Everything is . . . jumbled./ The voice—mixed voices?—faded out for a moment, and Willow, with a moment to think identified who was speaking to her. The voice could only be Alucard. He was the only one she—_Seras_ she corrected—knew of who had the ability, but with the spell ended and Alucard vanished Buffy's voice was mixed in.

_But if I'm still thinking like Seras, remembering things Seras saw . . . does that mean that Buffy's dealing with Alucard's memories? _That was a sobering thought. Alucard didn't open up to h—Seras damn it!—about what he had gone through, but she'd read what was available in the Manor's library. What would it be like to have centuries of memory shoved into one's head instead of a couple decades?

The sound of the voice, when it returned, would have made her jump, had she been able to feel her body. /I forget sometimes just how young Seras is. Was . . . whatever. She never had to reform her body after it took catastrophic damage, and I suppose that I shouldn't expect someone who has been True Nosferatu for less than two hours, no matter how many months their memories _say _they have walked the night, to have figured the trick out in the interim./

_Definitely Buffy's influence there, _Willow decided. Alucard had never allowed himself to come across as sentimental. _Thank you very much, Master. Now what do I need to do?_

/First, can the 'Master' thing. You are True Nosferatu now, unbound by my will. Call me Lilith. I shall certainly assist you, but from the time Seras sucked the blood of that idiot Frenchman she became master of her own fate. As for reforming your body, you simply need to envision yourself as you should be and will your assorted pieces back together. So easy even you can manage it, Willow dear./

And even though she _knew_ that Al—Bu—_Lilith_ was teasing her, she couldn't help but rise to the bait. And she would have done it just as easily as she remembered Alucard doing it. Except that she was having envisioning problems. Images of Willow-her conflicting with memories of Seras-her and fouling the whole thing up. Each time she got close to finally forming an accurate mental picture of herself, some detail from Seras slipped in.

/Having trouble?/

_Yes, Ma—Alu . . .Lilith._

/Oh? And what seems to be the problem?/ If she'd been unsure whether her Ma—damnit, Buffy, Lilith, whoever!—had anticipated the problem the sheer delight she heard in his/her/its mental voice settled the matter.

_I can't get a clear picture of myself. I keep mixing up who I am and who Seras is . . . was . . . whichever! _Trying to decide which word to use when was starting to drive her up the walls.

Her instructor's voice was very matter of fact. /So? Make a compromise then. I have black hair now. Though you might want to try and blend the parts together so that everything's more or less proportional. Looking like a bad copy of Frankenstein's Bride would simply be tasteless./

When she got out of wherever-the-hell she was and back into a rational universe where she had arms she was going to strangle the new Lilith-Buffy, no matter if it was the last thing she ever managed to do.

/Ah! I see my motivational strategy is paying dividends already./

No, death was too good for her supposed best female friend. She was going to practice Vlad's favored method of execution until she was better at it than the old bat could ever have dreamed of being, and she was going to use Lilith for practice.

/Ah, but to do that you have to have a body, don't you?/

The image came together in her mind without conscious thought. Which was convenient, since she wasn't capable of anything even resembling rational thought at that point in time. And she had more than enough willpower to force her recalcitrant body to comply.

XXXXX

Xander turned around just in time to see all the Vampire-pieces scattered across the shop turn to liquid and flow together into a form that was at least similar to his Willow. A more bosom-y far, far more naked version of the Willow he was familiar with. Reacting instinctively, he snapped his eyes from his best friend's chest up to her face.

He'd expected red hair like Willow had had ever since he'd known her; instead, he saw what appeared to be a fresh-from-the-salon layered style that would've matched or bettered anyone in Cordelia's crowd, the shoulder-length hair fading from the usual red at the roots to strawberry-blonde at the tips. Xander had definite issues about acting like an idiot in front of girls in general, and pretty girls in particular, issues that he had only just realized applied to Willow. Xander might have been looking at his best friend, he might have had a stuffy old British guy shoved in his head, and he certainly had a bit of a Paladin complex.

He was also, however, a teenaged boy, and he couldn't quite suppress a quick glance to see if the carpet matched the drapes. When he realized that the designer had apparently decided that carpet was soooooo last year his brain decided to lock up tighter than Fort Knox.

The very small part of his brain that was still functional was abruptly very glad that Giles had decided to pass out from shock before Willow's new body manifested.

XXXXX

Willow opened her eyes to see Xander staring at her like a poleaxed steer. Surely he remembered enough of being Walter to have seen Alucard pull himself together after a fight? Willow tried to put her hands in her pockets, in the process hunching her shoulders forward and doing interesting things to her cleavage. That was, inevitably when she realized that she didn't _have _pockets.

Willow whirled to face the grinning figure of the only other True Nosferatu on the planet, her face a picture of indignation and fury. Everyone within three blocks heard her shout of outrage and fury, delivered in a mix of California, USA and middle class England, "YOU GODDAMN BLOODY GREAT PILLOCK!"

Sunnydale being Sunnydale everyone ignored the insane laughter and gunfire that followed.

XXXXX

As always, please review, it is, after all, the coin of the realm.

And that's it! I'm going back to bed.


	3. The Cold Light of DayPart 1

XXXXX

Again, I'm so incredibly impressed with how many people liked this story (on TtH at least) and took the time to review. Your reviews really helped me get past some of the more annoying parts of this chapter. I hope that this section meets with a similar amount of favor.

As before,

"Speech"

_Thought_

/Telepathy/

Once again, I own nothing but my fickle, semi-psychotic muse. Do not sue me; I have nothing worth taking.

XXXXX

The Cold Light of Day (Part I)

Mayor Richard Wilkins the third came as close to glaring as he ever permitted himself as he read the report from his sources about the chaos of the night before. If that arrogant fool Rayne hadn't gotten himself killed . . .

But he had, and no point in crying over spilled milk. A sigh escaped his lips as he finally released his anger as unproductive. This was, after all, one of the plurality of reasons he'd built Sunnydale over a Hellmouth. Even the most blatant evidence of the supernatural was forgotten quickly under the mind-numbing influence of the dimensional shear created by the poorly sealed portal. Aside from those already aware of the 'nightlife,' everyone should forget about it within the week. Any memories distorted, so that, within a month the people would only remember that the children had been particularly poorly behaved. All of the violence and deaths forgotten in favor of 'Those teenagers and their rap music!'

Finished with his perusal of the statement, Mayor Wilkins looked up at his deputy, "Very well done as usual, Allen. A model report!" his customary smile decorating his features, and some of the tension bled out of the Deputy Mayor's shoulders. "The only problem I see is that we don't have any information on who attacked poor mister Rayne," and there was the tension again. No reason to let the help get too complacent, after all.

"My apologies, sir," he squeaked, "but I'm afraid that most of our sources were, ah, occupied with their own concerns at the time,"

He'd expected that. Good help was so hard to find these last few decades. "Well, gosh, Allen. I'm afraid we're going to have to terminate some contracts over this little gaffe. Draw up a list of those responsible, and I'll make the cuts later," Allen nodded gathering his things up and preparing to get started on his newest task.

That was his . . . humanity-challenged constituents dealt with, now what was he forgetting . . .

"Oh, Allen, one more thing," he called as the other man was walking out the door.

"Sir?" ah, nervous again. Poor Allen, he really needed to consider a vacation.

"Is there any evidence that the Slayer might have been involved in Mister Rayne's regrettable demise?"

"No, Sir, the . . . brutal nature of the assault is far outside of what our profiles suggest the Slayer feels comfortable with. And that doesn't even consider her known reluctance to kill humans. Its more likely that he was killed by someone possessed by one of his own costumes,"

"Ironic, that. Thank you, Allen."

XXXXX

Giles shot straight into a sitting position as he woke, the last memories of his dreams flashing through his thoughts. He looked around in a panic for several moments before he realized where he was. _The davenport in my office. _He realized suddenly. _Bloody idiotic place to fall asleep. All it would take is one vampire wandering up from the sewers . . ._ Not a pleasant thought, that. And the dreams he'd had the night before! _Willow and Buffy as vampires, Dawn pointing a gun at me. _It must have been the presence of the Hellmouth below the library infiltrating his sleep.

A clank from the main room of the library drew his attention, but a muttered comment calmed his suddenly racing heart. _Xander's voice. _Giles frowned and glanced at the clock. _What, in the name of all that is yet Holy could cause _Xander_ to be in the library at seven o'clock in the morning on a Saturday?_ He wracked his brain for anything Buffy might have said about a project for one of her classes but came up empty-handed.

Maybe it was just a remnant of his nightmares, but fresh anxiety began to stir in the pit of his stomach. It took several seconds and an effort of will to calm his heartbeat and slow his breathing back to something approaching normal. _Calmly, old boy, no need for that. _Adrenaline, he decided, was the province of the young, but there was no need to unsettle the children by seeming flustered. He looked around his office for his electric kettle, hoping to use the familiar ritual of preparing a pot of Earl Grey to settle his still shaky nerves a bit only to find it missing. _Must have taken it home to wash._ Irrationally irritated by its absence, he resolved himself to suffering through the sludge that passed for coffee from the dispensing machine in the Teacher's Lounge. For having slept all night, he certainly felt exhausted.

He walked out into the main area of the library to check on the children before he left in search of caffeine only to freeze in shock at what he saw. The blood in his face drained clear of his throat and for a moment he swayed slightly on his feet.

Black hair, just like the dream. And before she could have even begun to turn around he knew he'd see eyes the color of fresh blood. The dreamlike quality the night before had taken on was stripped away by the light of All Saints Day, revealed as a comforting delusion. Had it simply been his charge, he might still have been tempted to believe himself dreaming or insane, but Xander was there as well as Dawn pouring over books from his extensive Occult collection. While a fourth person, a young woman he didn't recognize tapped away at one of the school's infernal computers. And they were drinking tea out of his missing kettle. Fortunately, they were all intent enough on their work that they hadn't noticed him as he entered.

So he took a breath for calm, then a second, and cleared his throat. All of their eyes turned to him, and suddenly he was surrounded by a quartet of concerned students, though Buffy and the other high-school aged girl hung back a bit. He inspected his charge's face, only peripherally aware of Dawn carefully checking his pulse and temperature.

She was worried, though she hid it well; masking it first with a Slayer's cold confidence and again a second time with something he couldn't quite recognize. But a Watcher had to be able to read his Slayer's body language as well as if not better than he could read dead languages. She was afraid—though of course _she'd_ never call it that—that he wouldn't be able to accept her. But layered over that concern was an-an armor of cultured apathy that his Buffy had never carried. He could almost hear a sneer in her voice just looking at her. He'd need to talk to her and to get her to talk to him, but this wasn't the time.

He allowed his inspection to pass to the young woman beside her, and for another half-second he didn't recognize her. But then something about the way she seemed to fidget nervously without moving, about the way she almost but not quite bit her lip anxiously registered and his eyes flew wide. "Dear Lord, you're Willow,"

There was absolute silence for a moment before Buffy began sniggering behind her hand. Willow shot her a glare and started to open her mouth, a ferocious scowl on her features, but before she could speak Xander and Dawn lost their own battle to contain their laughter and even Giles found himself chuckling, stress bleeding off of him in waves. Finally Willow shook her head and began to laugh as well.

His children had been changed the night before, altered in a fundamental way, but they were alive and together, and for the moment that was all that mattered.

XXXXX

Dawn flipped the page roughly in disgust. She'd only been reading through this book for a few minutes, but she could tell there was nothing in it that would be worthwhile at all. Just like all of the other books in the Watc—In Mr. Giles—collection, and despite claims to the contrary, it discussed only the demonic breed of Vampires that plagued Sunnydale in detail. _I'd give away the Manor right now for a single reliable text!_ The thought slipped out naturally and Dawn grimaced at it. _May that idiot Rayne burn forever for that reckless stunt._

The movement was small. If Dawn had been focused on her work she might have missed it. For a single instant more sensed than seen, her sister froze. There were very few things in Heaven or on Earth or in the Pit that could bother Alucard, and if one of them was around they were all probably dead anyway. More likely that this was a purely Buffy issue. Which meant . . .

/Alu—Lilith, give him a moment/ she ordered over the telepathic link the seals gave her to her family's 'pet.' A feeling of irritation flowed back down the link along with some small amount of martyred patience.

/Would you like to teach me how to tie my shoes as well, Master?/ though her sister's face remained impassive, she could feel the annoyed glower camouflaged under it. Still, better that Bu—Lilith—work out her annoyance on someone other than the Watcher. A quick glance confirmed that Xander had noticed her sister's flinch, but had also extrapolated the reason that she'd done it. No harm to be done there. Dawn didn't even bother to look at Willow. Despite the fact that she was now True Nosferatu, she simply didn't have the experience that Integra and Walter had possessed.

So when Giles cleared his throat, the only one in the room who was genuinely surprised was Willow over at her computer. An outside observer could be forgiven for not noticing it. Xander immediately ducked back behind his 'look at me, I'm an idiot' mask, joking and smiling like he always did. His own serious side, now reinforced by Walter's sense of duty hidden behind the jester's façade.

Dawn made the appropriate sounds of greeting before immediately checking the aging librarian's vitals. He'd been in a severe state of shock earlier that morning, and he was probably having issues with stress at the moment as well. The last thing they needed was for him to have a heart attack on top of everything else.

Willow and Bu—Lilith—she corrected herself quickly, the last thing she needed was for her sister to have a hissy fit and upset the librarian, held back with something that approached actual nervousness from both vampires.

_Will wonders never cease? _Dawn was well aware of how the Watcher's silence was affecting Willow and her sister.

"Dear Lord, you're Willow,"

Lilith lost it, completely and totally. Dawn truly tried to remain calm, if only to help preserve the poor girl's injured dignity, but the irrepressible amusement flowing down her bond from her sister in waves was simply too much to resist. After a few moments even Willow joined in. Injured dignity or not, Giles' shock was still hilarious.

And they'd _needed_ that laughter. As a shared moment and a reduction of tensions it was absolutely invaluable, a necessary reminder that, despite the previous night's events, they were still _them_. And all of them were loath to let the moment end.

But end it did, Giles, ever the stoic Englishman, disentangled himself from the quartet of students, retrieved his teacup from behind the Library's counter, and poured himself a generous portion of the electric kettle's contents. That seemed to be enough like a signal for everyone else to re-congregate around the research table, once more somber.

Giles took a sip of his tea, apparently trying to gather his thoughts, then started and stared into his cup. "Good Lord," another sip. "This is quite remarkable," Giles shot a look around the table, obviously searching for the one responsible for what he was no doubt considering a minor miracle.

"No trouble at all, G-man," Xander said, a grin developing on his face as Giles stared.

"I take it that this is a manifestation of your costumed persona?"

"Yep, I dressed as Walter Dornez,"

Giles nodded as though that meant something to him while he continued to drink what Dawn knew was extremely well prepared tea. "That leads in well enough to what we need to discuss," Giles said as he set his cup down on its saucer. He took a deep breath and looked at each of the others in turn. "I need to know everything you can remember about what happened last night and about the characters you dressed as and I need to know it now."

Dawn was taken aback by Giles' forceful statement and the urgency behind it. A quick glance around the room showed that the others shared her astonishment. The normally calm, cool, and collected Watcher and Librarian was very, very worried.

Their suddenly nervous stares must have been a sight because Giles sighed and began to point out a problem that Dawn, even with Integra's memories, hadn't anticipated and Lilith, despite Alucard's powers, had overlooked. "Buffy," he said ignoring Lilith's irritated glare, "was the Slayer. One girl in all the world. And when one dies . . ." he trailed off as Dawn, Xander, and Willow paled and Lilith flinched.

"Another is called," Lilith bit out. "Damn."

"Indeed," Xander agreed with a concerned frown, "They'll discover a new Slayer has been activated soon if they haven't already."

"That's not the worst of it, though," Giles interrupted. "All Field Watchers are required to report to the Council as soon as possible after their Slayer has died; there have been cases where particularly resourceful vampires have managed to turn both a Slayer and her Watcher. If I fail to report for more than fifteen or twenty hours they will send a number of persons to Sunnydale to make certain that none of the secrets of the Council can be exposed.

"Furthermore," he continued in an even more dire tone, "the Council has ways to make certain that they aren't being lied to. Any report I send to them will have to first, cover up the fact that Buffy—or rather Lilith—is a vampire, second, assure the Council that she is not in any position to reveal any classified information, third be professional and detailed enough that the senior members of the Council feel no need to investigate the matter, and finally contain absolutely nothing that is untrue." The Watcher looked out over the small assembly in front of him. "Time is of the essence here. Let's be about it."

XXXXX

Giles removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes as he looked down at the letter in front of him, making absolutely certain that every detail was correct and, at least as importantly, convincing.

It had taken until just before noon. Longer than he'd hoped, but not so long as he'd feared for his children to give him an adequate understanding of Mideons—which he still wasn't sure he believed, despite having seen B—Lilith and Willow standing in the sunlight—and the background of the Hellsing organization and the Royal Protestant Knights and their enemies in general. Then it had been up to him to craft an explanation for the night before that was correct in every particular and yet entirely illusory. Now he looked at the finished product on his desk and hoped that it would pass muster.

'Gentlemen and Ladies of the Council of Watchers,' it began.

'I regret to inform you that at or about nine o'clock in the evening on October the Thirtieth of the Year of Our Lord 1997, Slayer Buffy Summers was lost to the foul magic of the Chaos Mage, Ethan Rayne. Magus Rayne invoked the god Janus to power an incantation that transformed unwitting humans into what they had dressed as for Halloween. Upon becoming aware of the disturbance I tracked the spell back to the Costume shop Ethan had set up to facilitate his activities. Upon my arrival I discovered Ethan dead, and his spell broken; however, Slayer Summers body was almost completely liquefied by the backlash caused by the destruction of the spell's focus. I apologize for the tardiness of this report, I'm afraid that due to the difficulty of positively identifying the remains the delay was unavoidable.

With Sincerest Regret,

Watcher Rupert Giles'

The stilted, formal phraseology was nothing more than the Council would expect from a formal communiqué, and the content . . .

_Reasonably detailed. To the point. Truthful. _And yet completely misleading. It wasn't perfect, but it was the best he was capable of coming up with on short notice. _In the future, I'll be certain to have a form letter prepared just in case my Slayer ever gets turned into a non-demonic, blood-sucking, vampire. _A pause _And these bloody Americans are starting to infect me with their sarcastic wit._

Giles sighed once again as he began to polish his glasses. He could only hope that the children would be spared what the Council would desire to inflict on them if they were aware of what had truly occurred the previous night. Giles looked at the clock and winced. It was well into the afternoon now, and he'd had less than three hours of sleep in the last day and a half. He wanted his bed in the worst possible way. Instead, he picked up his phone.

Genuine weariness would help confuse any conflicting impressions that the Council's spells might pick up. Besides, he'd sound like an exhausted professional working beyond any consideration of his own comfort to accomplish his duties.

The phone only rang once before it was picked up by the Council's secretary in England. "This is Watcher Giles. I need to speak to Mr. Travers immediately. . ."

XXXXX

Dawn could only be grateful when they arrived at home to find their mother's car still absent from its usual place. _Still not back from Los Angeles. _That was nothing but a good thing in her mind. Longer for her to remember that she was no longer nobility, no longer master and commander after God of the Order of Royal Protestant Knights.

And longer for her to convince her sister that she _really _needed to at least _pretend_ to be human. _Speaking of acting human . . ._

"You know, Lilith, you really ought to stop glaring at the sun; people are starting to notice." An indecipherable mutter answered her cajoling and annoyance filled their mental link.

And the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. Expecting someone with Alucard's memories and ingrained attitudes to voluntarily open up to anyone was a lost cause. "What was that, Lilith? I'm afraid I didn't hear you," she spat at the Nosferatu in an astringent voice.

Lilith glared back for a moment before allowing an exasperated sigh to escape her lips. "These people are fools," she muttered, almost too softly for Dawn to hear her and in a pitch far lower than Buffy would have been able to use. "They live their lives surrounded by the darkness and yet refuse to believe that it exists until they run headlong into it in some dark alley." A snort, "Doubtless some disbelieve it even then."

Dawn strangled a wince, shielding it as well as she could from her link to Lilith. Alucard and, apparently now Lilith as well, had a . . . certain system for classifying people; discreet boxes that she could slot someone into. Those perceptions affected how she treated the person, how well she'd listen to their orders . . . hell, half the time it had determined whether or not Alucard would shoot them outright.

Man, monster, or dog. And Lilith had decided that the vast majority of the human population of Sunnydale wasn't worth the bullet it would take to kill them.

That was . . . suboptimal. "And all the people of England that had no idea that Vampires or Freaks existed? You were not nearly so caustic when it came to them." Dawn responded, never noticing the hint of England that crept into her voice.

Lilith sneered disgustedly, "Ignorance is one thing; willful stupidity is another." A couple people on the street turned and glanced questioningly at her. She ignored them with iron clad disdain. "In nature, nothing so idiotic would be permitted to live," Looking at Lilith, Dawn felt a true prickle of fear and for just a moment, she wondered if her sister had decided to start a massacre after all. But the moment ended and the people that had been watching them blinked and shook themselves, and Dawn could almost see it as they lost interest in their eavesdropping.

"See? Willful stupidity," Lilith indicated the people that had overheard her with a toss of her head, disgust flowing down their link. And Dawn belatedly recognized that her fear hadn't been caused by worry. Lilith had, for just a second, allowed some of her incredible reserve of power loose from her usually strict control, and when she had, everyone that had been giving them odd looks found something else to do with their time.

Dawn found that she couldn't take much exception with her sister's assessment. In England, that little blast of power would have had people fleeing in all directions. Here, most of those affected hadn't even begun to walk faster, and all of them were still going about their day casually, as though they didn't have a care in the world.

Dawn was relieved to duck into their house; her mind was still spinning as Lilith quietly sauntered through a wall and into the kitchen. /You do realize that when Mom gets home you won't be able to do that anymore, don't you?/

The mental equivalent of a snort came back at her down their link. "Why?" the voice echoed out from the kitchen, "Do you really think she'd notice any more than those idiots on the street?"

And that pissed Dawn off. So their mother wasn't the best parent in the world! She tried! Which was better than a lot of parents in this day and age. But she was just as oblivious to the nightlife as anyone else in this Godforsaken town.

Another thought occurred to her, one that she didn't like, but one that was—given Alucard's history—probably affecting Lilith to an unfortunately degree. Her mother and the bastard formerly known as her father had put Buffy in a mental institution after the disaster at Hemery. And while Buffy had managed to forget about it most of the time, Lilith's well hidden fury made it obvious that she hadn't forgiven her parents for it.

And just as she was coming to the conclusion that she needed a _lot_ more time to even start getting a grip on Lilith's anger issues, she heard her mom's key turn in the lock._ Lovely. It doesn't rain but that it pours._

/Oh Lilith, I have a plan . . ./

XXXXX

Joyce walked through the front door thoroughly exhausted. The simple meeting she'd anticipated the evening before had turned into an all night negotiation fest with none of the other participants able to agree on anything except that they required further negotiation. She could barely believe that a bare two years ago, she'd have been right in the thick of the battle and loving it.

Now, though, it all seemed so futile. All she wanted was to take a shower and curl up with her daughters and a good movie for the rest of the afternoon.

Dawn, still in her Halloween costume met her at the door with an enthusiastic hug and Joyce couldn't help but smile. If Buffy hadn't been able to get her out of it, then she must have had a good time the night before. Joyce settled her hand in her youngest daughter's wig, ready to start on getting her back into more normal clothes when the texture of the 'wig' percolated through her tired brain.

"Dawn! You were supposed to wear a wig last night, not dye your hair!" Joyce saw Dawn's wince and forced herself to calm down. All the books she'd read said that teens were going to be rebellious, no matter what she did to try and nip it in the bud. Dawn was just starting earlier than her sister had. _At least there wasn't any fire involved this time. _"Its alright, dear, but next time ask me before you decide to become a blond like your sister," Another almost hidden wince and Joyce's mom instincts sat up and took notice. "Dawn, what did Buffy do,"

"Um," Dawn hesitated fidgeting and looking at the floor, "She might have gotten into a fight last night, and there might have been a boy involved, and she _might _have dyed her hair and not want to be called Buffy anymore?"

Joyce took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. This was not what she needed after pulling an all nighter at her age. "I think you'd better tell me what happened, Dawn,"

Dawn seemed caught between betraying her sister and listening to her mother for a moment before she spoke, "A boy made her think that her name made her sound easy. She was really mad, Mom," now it was Joyce's turn to wince which turned into a full blown grimace when Dawn continued, "What does 'easy' mean?"

"I'll tell you when you're older, dear" she said as she walked by her youngest, never noticing the amused gleam in Dawn's eyes. It was a measure of how tired she was that she got to the bottom of the stairs before she remembered what else Dawn had said about her older daughter. "And if she doesn't want to be called Buffy, then what does she want to be called?" _She'll probably go with Ann if someone's made her think 'Buffy' insinuates . . . something. Poor girl, when I find out what boy is responsible for this he'll wish his mother had never even met his father. In fact-_

"She wants to be called Lilith,"

And Joyce closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead in a vain attempt to quell her incipient headache. She couldn't remember precisely what her books said about a teen's mental state when she divorced herself entirely from her former identity, but she knew it wasn't good at all. As she walked up the stairs, she mentally upgraded what she intended to do to the person responsible from 'discussion with parents/disciplinary actions' to 'physical harm/lawsuits.'

With some trepidation, Joyce knocked on her elder daughter's door. "Lilith?"

"Go away,"

The voice was clearly audible even through the door. As was the anger that voice carried. "Bu—Lilith, please tell me wha-"

"I said, go away!" she snarled, then, almost as if it had been dragged out of her, "Please. Just leave me alone for a while,"

Joyce hesitated, torn between respecting her daughter's desire for some space and the need to help her, to provide a shoulder for her to cry on. To get the story out of her so that she'd know what was going on. Without time to consult the manual, as it were, she went with her gut feeling. "I'll bring you up some dinner later, dear," she said, trying to keep the worry out of her voice as she headed back down the stairs wondering the whole time if she was making the right decision.

XXXXX

Lilith leaned back on her bed as Joyce walked down the stairs and tried to reconcile her divergent views of the woman. The part of her that was Alucard felt largely contemptuous of her. She'd put her head in the sand after those filth that claimed to be Nosferatu attacked her daughter and refused to take it back out and deal with reality. If it were up to her Alucard-self, she wouldn't have even acknowledged the woman's existence. And yet . . .

'_And yet' indeed, _Lilith reflected as she considered the other perspective from the smaller, quieter part of herself; a part of her that had been largely quiet since she woke with her various pieces scattered over the back room of Ethan's shop. Her Buffy-self, in sharp contrast to the part of her that was a four century old Mideon, felt a mix of love and embarrassed gratitude that her mother cared enough to try and help her through a hard time. Gratitude that her mother spent so much of her free time reading those dumb 'How to Raise your Children' books trying so hard to understand her willful sometimes even bratty daughters. She might not be the best mom ever, but she did her best, and Lilith's Buffy-self loved her mother very much.

All this left Lilith in a quandary. Her Buffy-self and her Alucard-self were in direct opposition to each other, and the conflicting emotions were driving her nuts. Shaking her head, she forced the battle into the back of her mind, deliberately thinking about something else while her component selves fought over who was right.

Lilith sat back and thought over what Dawn had said to their mother and felt a certain amount of amusement. It was amazing how much she'd implied without actually saying anything false. One of the few things Buffy and Alucard agreed on was that they were annoyed at being ordered to their room by their younger sister/master and then ordered to follow along with her story. Another was that they needed to get back at Dawn for it.

Speaking of . . . the sun was going down. After a moment's consideration, Lilith decided to follow her Alucard-self's nightly ritual and report to Dawn/Integra for her orders and a very Alucard smile spread over her features. Now, when was the most inconvenient time to show up?

XXXXX

Dawn had just stepped out of the shower and was in the process of reaching for a towel when Lilith stepped through the wall in front of her. She tried to stifle her shriek, but the amused smile on her sister's face told her that she'd failed as did the humor flowing down their telepathic bond. She had a feeling that she'd just been one upped in the 'annoy my sister' department. She briefly contemplated finding her pistol before remembering that she wasn't in the Manor anymore and it was quite likely that the police would be called if she started putting holes in her vampiric servant.

Refusing to give the Mideon any more satisfaction, Dawn composed herself before she spoke, only the hint of England in her voice giving her annoyance away. "I could have sworn I ordered you not to do that here, Lilith," she said in an _almost_ level voice, glaring at the offending Nosferatu.

The Nosferatu who grinned at her statement, lips pulling back from teeth _just_ too far for the smile to look right on a human face. "Actually, your exact words were, 'Don't use any of your more inexplicable powers where Mom might see,'" the grin widened. "There was no chance of her seeing anything untoward in this case, so the letter of your order has been obeyed, Little Sister."

Dawn scowled. _Damnable annoying vampire. _"Verywell, Lilith, were you just pointing out the hole in my orders, or is there a reason you decided to wander in here now?"

The grin widened _again_, this time skin slid far enough back to display a wide swath of molars, "Sunset approaches. What are your orders, Master?"

The severity of Dawn's glare at her sister jumped up a notch or two for a moment before she admitted that Lilith had a point, even if she'd been using that point as an excuse to be a pain. "Even in this reality, and even without the Order of Royal Protestant Knights, your orders remain the same. Search and Destroy,"

XXXXX

Sorry about cutting this chapter off in the middle, but if I'd kept going, it would have ended up as a 10,000 word monster. So, in the interest of keeping the chapters roughly the same size, I cut this one in half. This time I covered Giles, Dawn, and Buffy. The next half of the chapter covers what the other half of the group was doing.

Thanks again for all your reviews, and remember to feed the muse.

And that's it, I'm goin' back to bed.


End file.
